About Tobey Maguire

Tobias Vincent "Tobey" Maguire (born June 27, 1975) is an American actor and producer. He began his career in the late 1980s. While perhaps best known for his role as Peter Parker / Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man film trilogy (2002–2007), he has also appeared in films such as Pleasantville (1998), Ride with the Devil (1999), The Cider House Rules (1999), Wonder Boys (2000), Seabiscuit (2003), The Good German (2006), Tropic Thunder (2008), and Brothers (2009). He has been nominated for Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe Awards and received two Saturn Awards, including one for Best Actor.

Early life

Maguire was born in Santa Monica, California. He is the son of Wendy (née Brown), a secretary turned screenwriter and producer, and Vincent Maguire, a construction worker and cook. He has four half-brothers. His parents, 18 and 20 years old, were unmarried at the time of his birth; the two married and subsequently divorced when Maguire was two. Maguire spent much of his childhood moving from town to town, living with each parent and other family members. During his childhood, Maguire entertained the idea of becoming a chef and to that end wanted to enroll in a home economics class as a sixth grader. His mother offered him US$100 to take a drama class instead, and Tobey agreed.

The nomadic nature of his school-age years began to take a toll on Maguire emotionally, and finally, after another relocation for his freshman year, Maguire dropped out of high school and did not return. Instead, he pursued an acting career. By 2000, Maguire had obtained his GED, noting that during his school days, "I wasn't doing school; I was showing up, but...not really giving myself."

Career

Early career

Maguire's first appearance in a feature film was in 1989's The Wizard. He plays one of Lucas Barton's goons (one of three competitors at a video game competition) and had no lines. Maguire initially worked as a child actor in the early 1990s, often playing roles much younger than his chronological age; as late as 2002, Maguire was still playing teenagers while in his mid-20s. He appeared in a variety of commercials and TV and movie roles, working opposite such actors as Chuck Norris (Walker, Texas Ranger), Roseanne Barr (Roseanne), and Tracey Ullman (Tracey Takes On...). Eventually, Maguire was cast as the lead in the FOX TV series Great Scott, which was cancelled five weeks later.

During many of his auditions, Maguire found himself auditioning for roles opposite another rising actor, Leonardo DiCaprio. The pair struck up a fast friendship and made an informal pact to help each other get parts in their movies/TV shows/other projects. For example, both auditioned for the same part in the 1990 TV series based on the 1989 comedy Parenthood. DiCaprio got the part, and Maguire later got a guest role at least partially due to DiCaprio's recommendation. The same scenario played itself out during casting for the 1993 movie This Boy's Life (featuring Robert De Niro as the lead); DiCaprio got the main teen role (coincidentally, the character was named "Toby") and Maguire got a part as one of Toby's friends.

By the mid 1990s, Maguire was steadily working but becoming involved in the hard-partying lifestyle of some of his fellow teen actors. In 1995, Maguire requested director Allan Moyle to release him from his part in the movie Empire Records. Moyle agreed, and all of Maguire's scenes were deleted from the final film. Maguire then sought help for an underaged drinking problem from Alcoholics Anonymous; he has been sober ever since.

As part of his recovery from alcohol and learning to deal with his self-described "addictive and compulsive nature", Maguire changed his career path slightly in order to obtain roles where he and DiCaprio would not always be in competition for the same part, and the move paid off when he got the role of Paul Hood, a teenage boarding school student whose narration anchors the action in Ang Lee's 1997 film, The Ice Storm. This led to a variety of lead roles in films such as Pleasantville, The Cider House Rules, and Wonder Boys.

In the 1998 film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas he portrayed a hitchhiker who met Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo during their drive to Las Vegas.

In Ride with the Devil (1999), Maguire performed as Jakob Roedel, opposite Jewel Kilcher. Here he played the son of a unionist German immigrant who joins his southern friends in the Missouri riders, avenging the atrocities committed against Missourians by Kansas Jayhawkers and redleggers.

In 2001, Maguire took a role that featured his youthful-sounding voice, a beagle puppy named Lou, in the family movie Cats & Dogs.

Spider-Man

In 2002, Maguire starred in Spider-Man, based on the popular Marvel Comics superhero. The film was a major success and quickly shot Maguire to stardom. He reprised his role in the sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), and has also provided the voice of Spider-Man for the video game adaptations of the films.

Maguire's performance as Spider-Man earned him some glowing reviews. For instance, Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribune felt that "with his big, round, soulful eyes, Maguire always has been able to convey a sense of wonder, and his instinct for understatement also serves him well here." Due to script and production complications, a proposed third Spider-Man sequel did not materialize. It has been confirmed by Sony executives that the franchise will be rebooted, and will focus on a younger Spider-Man (played by Andrew Garfield) as Peter Parker is still in high school in the movie, and Garfield has a much younger appearance than Maguire. The film, titled The Amazing Spider-Man, will be released on July 3, 2012.

Later career

Maguire solidified his stardom in 2003 with a leading role as the jockey John M. "Red" Pollard in the acclaimed film Seabiscuit, about the famous racehorse Seabiscuit. In 2006, Maguire starred in his first villainous role as Corporal Patrick Tully opposite George Clooney and Cate Blanchett in Steven Soderbergh's The Good German, based on the Joseph Kanon novel of the same name.

He is also a producer whose production credits include 25th Hour (2002), Whatever We Do (2003), and Seabiscuit (2003), for which he served as executive producer.

In 2008, Maguire took on a cameo role in the action comedy film Tropic Thunder as a gay 18th century monk with his eye on Father O'Malley (Kirk Lazarus, the character played by Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder) in the faux trailer for Satan's Alley. Near the end of the film, it is revealed that Maguire's character has been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, which he loses.

In 2009, he starred alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman in the Jim Sheridan-directed war drama Brothers as Sam Cahill, a prisoner of war who returns from Afghanistan and starts believing that his wife has become romantically involved with his brother. He received critical acclaim and a Golden Globe nomination for his dramatic performance in the film. Of the nomination, Tobey Maguire said "I had no expectation about getting a nomination, but I was watching nonetheless. My wife and my son got really excited. I was sort of surprised – I was like, 'Oh, wow.' And I couldn't hear the latter part of my name."

As of November 2007, Warner Bros. has plans to fast-track a movie based on 1980s anime series, Robotech. Maguire is producing the film through his Maguire Entertainment banner and is eying the lead role in what the studio plans on being a tentpole sci-fi franchise. "We are very excited to bring 'Robotech' to the big screen", Maguire said. "There is a rich mythology that will be a great foundation for a sophisticated, smart and entertaining film..." The decision was said to have been made due to the enormous success of the Transformers film adaptation, which grossed $690 million during the summer of 2007.

Maguire is attached to produce Afterburn, a science fiction movie based on the Red 4 comic book by Paul Ens and Scott Chitwood. Neal Moritz's Original Films is also producing and Relativity is in talks to board the post-apocalyptic project, whose story is set one year after a solar flare burns half of Earth, leaving what life remains mutated from radiation and nuclear fallout. Treasure hunters then go back to the scorched portion of the planet to retrieve valuable artifacts while facing rival hunters, mutants and pirates along the way. It has been announced that Gerard Butler is in negotiations to star in the film while Antoine Fuqua in talks to direct.

Maguire's company is also co-producing an adaptation of a mystery novel by Isaac Adamson called Tokyo Suckerpunch with Sony Pictures. The film, scheduled to be released in 2011,[dated info] will star Maguire in the role of American reporter Billy Chaka, who investigates the murder of a Japanese friend in Tokyo.[citation needed]

Personal life

Maguire has been a vegetarian since 1992 and in 2009 became a vegan. PETA declared him the World's Sexiest Vegetarian in 2002. He often makes changes in his diet to either gain or lose weight for movie roles; for example, he dramatically decreased his calorie intake for Seabiscuit followed by a rapid increase to regain weight for Spider-Man 2.

In an article for Premiere magazine, Sam Raimi confirmed the long-standing rumor that Maguire and his Spider-Man co-star Kirsten Dunst had "a thing" going on during the 2001 shooting of the first film. As Raimi explained for the article, "I'm so dumb, because I met with them for dinner one night during the shooting to talk about the next day's scenes. And I go, 'Okay, well, that's it for the meeting.' And then I ask Kirsten, 'Can I drive you home?' And they look at each other and she goes, 'No, no, I'm going to play a game of Touch 10 with Tobey.' I don't know, it was some game. I thought, 'That's weird. She's got to work tomorrow.'"

Maguire met Jennifer Meyer in 2003 while he was shooting the movie Seabiscuit at Universal Studios, and became engaged in April 2006. Their daughter Ruby Sweetheart Maguire was born on November 10, 2006. Ruby's middle name comes from a childhood nickname of Meyer's given to her by her grandmother, who died a few months before Ruby's birth. The couple married on September 3, 2007, in Kona, Hawaii. Their second child, Otis Tobias Maguire was born on May 8, 2009.

In 2004, Maguire took up tournament poker. He has finished in the money in several events and has been tutored by poker professional Daniel Negreanu. Maguire can be seen on ESPN's coverage of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event Championship. Moreover, professional poker player Phil Hellmuth said during the June 28, 2007, episode of Poker After Dark that Tobey has won $10 million by playing poker in Hollywood. Maguire played in the 2007 World Series of Poker. He survived days 1a, 2a and 3 but was eliminated in 292nd place on the fourth day, taking $39,445 in prize money.

Maguire loves playing[citation needed] basketball; he often plays pick-up games with friends and organizes a weekly game on Saturdays when he is both in Los Angeles and not filming. He also enjoys watching basketball games, especially the Los Angeles Lakers and can often be seen with wife Jennifer Meyer at courtside for Laker home games. As a baby gift, comedienne Ellen DeGeneres gave Maguire a special basketball motif stroller with Lexan dome to protect their daughter from errant basketballs.